I. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to the field of computer graphics and to the rendering of symbols to facilitate, for example, the modeling of processes, such as business processes. More particularly, the present invention relates to computerized systems and methods for rendering symbols using non-linear scaling.
II. Background Information
Many software and consulting companies use tools for strategy, design, implementation and controlling of business processes. A “business process” describes functions or activities that occur in a particular order and that create added value for a company. Since business processes are crucial to performance, companies often spend a significant amount of time and effort to design efficient business processes. Further, in order to efficiently design business processes, many companies use modeling tools. A “modeling tool” may include software and/or other computerized systems that can be used to plan a process. In general, modeling tools may depict, analyze, and optimize business processes. Often times a single tool can be used for modelling business processes.
Some modeling tools allow users to model a business process in a graphical form using symbols to represent a logical sequence of steps in a process. Many of these tools contain symbols that represent the objects in a model. A user can create and modify models using a toolset built into the modeling tool or provided separately. Each model contains information about which objects and which connections are visualized in that model. For each object, the model stores information about which symbol is used to visualize the object, its position on the canvas, its size, and its style.
One example of a platform for building business processes is the ARIS Platform provided by IDS Scheer AG (Saarbruecken, Germany). The ARIS Platform provides a tool portfolio for designing, implementing, and controlling business processes. Within the ARIS platform is a repository that contains a graph and the nodes within the graph are called objects. The models are graphical representation of a part of the graph. Objects are represented in the models using symbols. A user may use symbols included with ARIS or create symbols of his own using an AMF editor that is part of the ARIS system.
Many users may require the resizing of shipped default symbols or even customized symbols for various reasons. For example, a user may need to change the size of a symbol in order to place or arrange the symbol within a model of a business process comprising multiple symbols and/or other graphical representations. Further, resizing of a symbol may be required in order for text to fit into the symbol or the user desire to resize parts of a symbol without resizing other parts.
In prior solutions, if a user wanted to resize a symbol, a renderer or other application would perform a scaling coordinate transformation. This would involve multiplying each pixel's coordinate by specified scale factors in the x and y direction. This transformation, however, does not work for all symbols and may produce undesired results since often times the shape of a symbol may change or become distorted as a result of the transformation. For example, a rectangle may no longer represent a rectangle if resized and may instead turn into a square. Scaling coordinate transformations also do not work when resizing a symbol or image that contains an external element, such as another graphic, or symbols containing lines, text, and polygons. For instance, when the elements are resized, distortions may occur with the inserted graphic, text, etc.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for improved rendering systems and methods for scaling symbols. Moreover, there is a need for improved systems and methods for scaling symbols using non-linear scaling.